Cropped and framed
Colour corrected and edited
Burnished and patinaed
To make a picture
That tells the story
I wish to remember
There is nothing so beautiful
As a moment offered in whole
To the act of creation
Except perhaps
One given
To love
These leaves may seem
Like a reminder of past glory
These leaves may seem
Like a reminder of future possibility
But the leaves
Are just leaves
All the rest is just stories
I tell myself to make sense
Not of leaves
But of my own existence
Words arranged in verse
Form a matrix of possibility
An author’s intentions
A reader’s interpretations
Layers deep
Miles wide
All this also present
In a single word such as
Aum
Love
God
Beauty
Perfection
Each a poem with all the
Subtle renderings and possibilities of
AngelouÂ
Frost
Dickinson
Shakespeare
Plath
The final meaning rests solely
And rightfully with the reader
An ornate lamp hangs
In a gentle place
There to illuminate
When darkness falls
A beautiful ornament
In the clear light of day
Would create a spectacle
In the dim hues of night
And now I wish
I had seen this room
Bathed in the prismatic glow
Which gives shape to the dark
Every culture
Every person
Knows beauty
In their own way
I remind myself
Try to find
Beauty’s heart
In every way
That is the place
Where we are all one
That is the place
From which flows love
The thing about travel is
Something so everyday
As a group of friends
Hanging out on a street corner
Seems extraordinary…
…even beautiful
The thing about extended travel is
Once familiarity renders
The extraordinary as everyday
The sense of beauty in the mundane
Remains…
…and travels home with me
You with the sad eyes
Who found the glass
In this swarm of activity
And I released the shutter
Capturing your moment
Of I know not what
Tired?
Beaten down?
Or just weary
Of yet another tourist
Stealing a moment of your life
For a purpose you’ll never know
One small moment of
Solitude in the chaos
Unladen Burdens
Hers was an exquisite beauty
Not the kind to command
Covers or runways
That puts a name
Up in lights or lead a headline
Her beauty commanded a second look
The kind you missed on a first take
And yes, it was there on the surface
But more, it ran deep
In her bearing
In the way she made others
The center of her world
Her smile flowed
From every feature of her being
To receive one was to be blessed
The first time
She gave me that gift
It was through a tangle of locks
Tossed about in the wind
The sound of breakers far below
My heart knew only one person
In the entirety of existence
And it took years to convince it
That there were other smiles in the universe
Some time after I’d grown beyond the desire to possess her
Our group of friends retraced that old road trip
And on this same point, through tousled locks
She gave me again that heart-stirring smile
But this time said
“I think I am falling in love with you.”
